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I’m not sure what tires me out more being 23 weeks pregnant or having three little ones running around. I feel like I have been dragging myself around lately. My brain is on overdrive, my body can’t keep up and I find it difficult to keep my eyes open if I sit down for more than 2 seconds:) Can anyone out there relate?

The other day my 4 year old said “mommy do you want me to brush your hair, it looks really messy? Maybe you should put on a dress, your shirt is not very fashion”. Lol, there you have it, my 4 year old brushed my hair and got me dressed. How incredibly humbling!!

Because of my exhausted state, over past few days I have also made a point to have peaceful worship music on in the house, it seems to help lift my Spirit when I feel tired and dry. I have been crying out to the Lord (out loud); asking for help, expressing my heart, and confessing my desperation for Him in this season. Judah asked me yesterday “Mom, is everything ok”? “Yes” I replied, “why?”. He looked at me and said “you ask God for a lot of help.” Well, that is the truth and he is very observant! I am thankful that he sees my desperation and it humbles to continually confess to my 6 year old my need for the Lord.

It always amazes me how pride wants to creep in and tell us that we need to be independent, that we shouldn’t ask for help and that fearing man is more important than fearing the Lord. It says that we need to have every together, and it points to our identity as being flawed if we do not have all our ducks in a row. Thankfully over the past few years I have been able to recognize this prideful voice and ignore it when it comes calling. As godly women, wives and mothers we need to remain humble. I have found that positioning myself to remain humble provides fertile ground for seeds of encouragement to be sown. When we are prideful the soil of our heart is hard and it is difficult to plant anything in tough soil.

I have watched the Lord sow seeds of encouragement into my heart over the past few weeks as I have felt tired and broken. It reminds me of the kindling that you add to a fire to keep it burning. I see Him adding small words, actions and deeds from others to keep me going. I trust that He knows what I need, if too much kindling is added to a fire too fast, it burns dangerously fast and hot and then dies out and if not enough is added it dies out immediately. It is important to add just the right amount at the right time to sustain a warm enjoyable fire. I beleieve that He does that in our lives too.

What areas are you needing encouragement these days? Are you children able to see you in a place of brokeness before the Lord? It is important that our kids see us as human beings, not just supermom’s! They need to know that we have real feelings and real needs just like they do. This keeps us humble and it keeps them considerate. Being real and vulnerable with eachother strengthens our relationships and it promotes, healing, forgiveness and freedom!

May you be strengthen and encouraged today as you continue to burn for Him!

I wanted to post birthday wishes to my beautiful little girl today as I am so overwhelmed with love for her! Having a daughter is truly a gift from God. I learn so many lessons from watching her interact with others as I can see myself in her. I feel like the Lord speaks to me in such deep and profound ways as I watch her grow.I love her beyond words. I believe this is the same love that the Father feels towards me.

There are so many emotions that arise today as I celebrate the birth and life of my Mercy. As many of you know she has an older brother so when we recieved news that we were pregnant for the second time I was really hoping for a little girl.I had always dreamed of her but at the same time had struggled with thoughts of raising a daughter. I struggled with wondering if I was good enough. I doubted much of my identity and felt very insecure at the time. I was afraid that I wouldnt be able to give her what she needed to grow into a strong confident woman one day. I felt like all of my insecurities, self-doubts, shame and fears surfaced as I prepared to welcome her into the world. It was her birth and life that actually allowed me to find freedom from many of these dark thoughts and deep struggles that lay dormant in my Spirit.

God has mercy on me, as His kindness lead me to repentence. I began to realize that He is my source of strength and identity and He would provide me with everything I needed to raise this little girl.

Her life is a daily reminder of the freedom and deliverance that God has brought into my life. The mercy of the Lord was truly evident during this season of my life, part of the reason why we named her Mercy in the first place. So I bless her today, may her life continue to be light to lead others out of darkness for His honor and glory.

I heard a quote the other day that summed up what God had been teaching me over the past couple of days. Joel Osteen said this; “Give people room to be who God made them to be. If God wanted us to all look, think & act alike, He would have made us that way.” I often face this challenge with my own children. Some of them are really good at one thing while others are good at something else. I find myself comparing them to each other in my mind and hoping that they will just act the way I want them to.

The Lord has really been teaching me in those moments to stop and think about who He made them to be. They are ALL very different and beautifully unique. They all have strengths and weaknesses and it is my job to help them develop into the individual that He created them to be, NOT who I want them to be! There is a BIG difference. I need to give them grace to grow and room to develop their unique abilities.

I would challenge you this week to embrace the differences and unique strengths that each of your children have. Be thankful for who God is making them to be and recognize that they were not created to be like each other. I think that if, as parents, we can teach them this, then they will feel confident as they grow up to explore their God-given identity.

The Lord commands us to love Him will all our hearts, souls, minds and strength, and to love others as we love ourselves. (Matthew 28) I believe that each family and member of that family will express this love in different ways. If we all make that our mission and give eachother room to grow then we will revolutionize the world!!

May you be blessed as you watch the unqiue characters and traits in your family come alive today!

I remember people telling me when I had my first born to enjoy each moment because they grow up SO fast! At the time I thought, surely it cannot go by that quickly, but I have come to realize now that they were speaking the truth! Today is my son’s 6th birthday and I cannot believe how fast the past 6 years have gone. What a wonderful blessing it has been to have him in our lives. I love watching him grow every day and become an energetic, intelligent, compassionate, loving little boy. He is such a joy! Every year around this time I get weepy because I see him growing up and realize that we will never get these years back:( (I take a lot of video footage!:)

Here are a few of my favorite pictures and memories of my little guy!! I love Him and I love the Lord for giving to him to me and allowing me to priviledge of watching him grow up right before my very eyes!! May His life to a testimony to the greatness and goodness of our God!! Happy 6th Birthday Judah!!

We named him Judah which mean “Praise”. His life truly is a demonstration of praise to our Father!!

The day he was born – April 15, 2007, 8lbs 1oz of perfection!

6 month old snuggles:)

Attacking his 1st birthday cake!

18 months old

Judah turns 2!!

My little man, 2 1/2yrs

3 year old monkey!!!

First day of homeschool – 4 years old

My 5 year old little stud:)

My handsome 6 year old!! Love him!

May you enjoy each day and every moment, drink them in slowly because before you know it, they’ll be all grown up and you will have wonderful memories and a lasting legacy of the faithfulness of God:)!

Many of my readers have asked me how I know what to teach in homeschool? It’s a loaded question because truthfully I don’t know everything that I am going to teach. While I do have a weekly schdedule and have purchased materials and workbooks for language arts, reading and math I tend to leave social science, Bible and life lessons/skills up to the everyday opportunities that present themselves. Honestly, I pray that ask God for wisdom and direction and every week we tend to cover more material and topics that I would have had if I had planned for it:) For example, there was a science lesson that we gleaned this week from our maple syrup tapping and it was fun and interesting for the kids.

The lesson was simple: We filled up two cups, both with 1/2 cup of water, then to one cup we added a tbsp of sugar. We labeled the sugar cup and put them both in the freezer. Every 15 minutes we would check to see which one was freezing the fastest. We concluded that the water with sugar freezes slower. We learned how this related to the sap in maple trees, how it acts as an antifreeze so that the maple trees dont freeze solid in the winter time!! It was cool and we all learned a little something.

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There are SO many little lessons that we can teach our kids every day, all we need to do is ask the Lord to give us the opportunities and when they present themselves be ok to steer away from the routine and have a little fun. The kids loved the project so much that they wanted to try to put other baking ingredients in water to see how long they would take to freeze:)…interesting how a little experiment can spark such interest and curiosity.

I must admit that I never thought that I would be tapping my own maple trees and bottling syrup but somehow in the past week that is what I have found myself and my family doing. It has been an adventure. AND a learning process:)

We decided to try to tap 10 trees and see what we got, so far the outcome has exceeded our original expectations. After 5 days of collecting sap we have 3L of syrup meaning that we collected approx 120L of sap and boiled it down!! For those of you who dont know how much that it, its a lot!!!

It has been fun to find a natural resource and literally tap into it. I am thankful for this wonderful land the Lord has given us.

Ideally, I would love to live on the land completely, to grow and sustain ourselves is a dream of mine, however we are not quite there yet. Our climate up here in Northern Ontario definitely makes it more difficult! (But we are trying to come up with creative ideas to be self sustaining)

My favorite part of this past week has been watching our kids help us out and get really excited about this new adventure. Judah loves to go out to the trees and collect the sap with us and Mercy is my “most excited” taste tester when we are boiling down the sap:) My husband has been amazing at setting things up, carrying heavy buckets and enjoying the journey with us.

I am convinced that not matter what venture you set out to do as a family that enjoying it TOGETHER is the BEST part!!

May you experience the unity and communion that comes from doing things together as a family!!

hi friends, i’m allison (or al) & i blog over at www.afterhissmile.com. i’ve been so blessed by emma’s friendship & wisdom. she recently guest posted on my blog here & i’m honored to do the same on her blog. 🙂

so these are our 3 boys… jude, sammy & amos. what a joy they are & what a tool of sanctification! 😉 as mommies we often look at others’ lives & honestly believe that they “have it all together”. we think, “how cute their kids are” or “how well behaved”. we only see the seemingly good. we just assume that somehow they are perfect & not swayed by sin & emotion.

we need to change our view of others… not that we look down on them by knowing they struggle with sin & we for sure don’t rejoice in it, but we find comfort in the fact that there are other mommies that are walking this journey of joys & sorrows, ups & downs, laughter & tears. we have fellowship in this truth with the body of Christ. & we should not just sit in our sin together, we should be spurring one another on to repentance & sanctification.

i challenge you to surround yourself with a community of mommies that realize their need for the Savior & point you to Him as well!

Our family has been truly blessed this past month! We were away in Florida for just over 2 weeks and it was a wonderful time of refreshing and fun adventures together! I am reminded, everytime I go away with my family, that they truly are the most important thing in my life.
It is so easy to get caught up in the daily routine of life and allow the simple joy of being together to be lost. As parents we need to remember that our FAMILY IS our FIRST priority. There will always be people wantings your time, others in crisis, problems that need to be solved, events that beg for your time and a to-do list that runs on forever. BUT your children won’t always live under the same roof as you, they won’t always want to snuggle or play or have time for you. Be sure to take advantage of the precious moments everyday and if you are able to getaway – DO IT!
What a treat it was to experience the wonders of Disney world together and share all the memories that brought us. Also to play in the sand, the pools and have no agenda other than to be together!! I am thankful that the Lord reminds me of this often. I need to be ALWAYS thankful for my amazing husband and beautiful children. And on that thankful note…We ALSO came back from this trip with an exciting announcement. We are going to have another baby!!! I am currently 16 weeks along and looking forward to having this new little one join us in September!
May you experience a refreshing dose of the JOY that family and new life brings!!
This is a picture of ALL of our children swimming in Florida:)